


I'll find you (at world's end)

by theflyinganonymouse



Category: VIXX
Genre: Curses, M/M, No Explicit Violence, Pirates, Pirates AU, Skeletons, a quest for redemption, because y'know, but its spoken about, kinda spooky to fit with the halloween season, pirates be the violent type, the usual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 23:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16439297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theflyinganonymouse/pseuds/theflyinganonymouse
Summary: Taekwoon's sisters tell him a ghost story the night before he sets sail to meet their father.If only they had known that there was some truth to their terrible tale...





	I'll find you (at world's end)

**Author's Note:**

> For the pirate square in the fantasia fic bingo :')
> 
> I know nothing about pirates or ships or the sea :') 
> 
> :')

His sisters corner him in his room the night before he’s due to set sail, their smiles wicked and their eyes bright with mischief, and they insist on telling him horrible tales of storms and shipwrecks and pirates.

“We want you to be prepared.” His eldest sister, Mikyung, says. “Just in case.”

“You already know the story of how raiders attacked my ship on my journey to visit Papa last year.” Miyeon, his second sister, presses a hand to her heart and screws her face into an appropriate expression of fear. “How I and all those brave men on Papa’s ship nearly lost our lives- it doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Taekwoon has heard the tale before and knows she is exaggerating. In reality, a ship flying a black flag had been spotted on the horizon and had disappeared from sight before Miyeon had even had chance to see it. She had never been in any danger.

“You’re just trying to frighten me.” He says with a frown. His sisters’ teasing is something new and he isn’t entirely used it yet. They had coddled him as a child, being much younger than they were and never in particularly good health, and they had fallen over themselves to make sure that he was happy. He’s a man now, though, newly turned eighteen, and their expressions of love have begun to manifest themselves in different ways. “It won’t work.”

“Why on earth would we want to do that?”

“Because you love to tease.” He answers, knowing the truth of it.

“My dearest baby brother, we only want you to be ready for what awaits you.” Miran says and she sits next to him on his bed and pulls him close. He half-heartedly tries to fight her. He’s a man now, after all. “The sea is a cruel mistress.”

“But none so much as to those who have wronged her.” His other sisters take up seats on the bed, too, and Mikyung draws her shawl around her shoulders before continuing on. “Have you ever heard tell of the story of the World’s End?”

“No.” Taekwoon admits and he immediately regrets speaking. He knows they are going to tell him something he does not want to hear.

“It was a large, ghastly ship with a crew of a nearly two hundred men. It prowled the seas bringing death and destruction to any who were unlucky enough to cross its path- raiding the shoreline and sinking ships. No one was safe from her clutches. The captain was a cruel man and took great joy from the terror he brought his victims

“So great was the fear his ship inflicted that many brave men gave up the idea of adventuring across the sea all together, too frightened for their lives, and soon the number of ships making journeys fell and the sea grew upset for, as everyone knows, the sea is never happier than when her waves are carrying explorers to the furthest reaches to uncover more of the world’s secrets. The captain of the World’s End grew arrogant and laughed in the face of the sea’s anger and so she cursed him and all of his crew.”

Miyeon nods, “and what a terrible curse it was! Never again could they anchor their ship in any port the world over for they had been doomed to never set foot upon land again- not until their captain learnt what it was to feel love in his heart and be loved in return. Of course, he had no great love on his ship and could meet no one new to inspire to love him so he and his men were doomed to die. Only, the sea would not be so kind to those that had wronged her. She watched as the men wasted away into skeletons and laughed at their hunger and at their suffering and did not allow them to know rest even when all that was left of them was bones.”

“It was many years ago when this happened but everyone knows that the World’s End still stalks the sea, her skeleton captain and all his damned crew still aboard- some say that they have seen her but that can hardly be true. No one has ever escaped the World End’s clutches and has lived to tell the tale.”

“Perhaps you will be one of the unlucky few to run across her path?” Miran asks, trying and failing to hide a grin.

“You’re all terrible.” He tells them and they kiss him and pet his hair and bid him goodnight.

Taekwoon tries not to take any of their words to heart but he finds it hard to sleep once that night. He tosses and turns and dreams terrible dreams of skeletal hands pulling at his limbs and squeezing at his throat.

He is bleary eyed and exhausted when his sisters see him off the next morning.

“Did you not sleep very well last night?” Miyeon teases while Mikyung fusses, tugging at his waistcoat and then at his tie.

“You’re not getting ill, are you?” Miran asks.

“I’m fine.” Taekwoon rolls his eyes, his cheeks red with embarrassment, and he tries to break away from Mikyung’s persistent fingers. “You shouldn’t coddle me so. I’m a man now.”

“You will always be a child in our eyes.” Mikyung tells him and then presses a kiss to cheek. “Take care of yourself, Taekwoon, and try not to take anything we said to you last night to heart. We were only making fun.”

“It was a cruel joke.” Taekwoon tells them.

“But a joke nonetheless.” Miyeon agrees.

“Try not to get sick.” Miran says. “We’ll see you in a month.”

They each kiss him goodbye and he walks up the gangway and onto the ship that has been waiting for him to board before setting sail. His first voyage.

He waves to his sisters until they are out of sight and then allows himself to be shown to his quarters. They are nice, perhaps nicer than the captain’s own, but that is only fitting, he supposes. He is Papa’s heir, after all, and this is his ship.

They are barely out of the harbour when the thudding begins.

It comes from beneath his breastbone, a dull and steady rhythm that does not stop even when he presses his hand to it. It isn’t painful, not really, but it is concerning. He wonders if Miran had known something he hadn’t when she had asked him about being ill.

Still, he tries not to think on it too much and lets himself be distracted by the ship’s captain who gives him a tour and talks him through the inner workings of the ship. Taekwoon enjoys himself, despite the thudding. He is interested to see what he has spent years learning the theory of in action and he is pleased that the captain seems impressed by his knowledge.

He watches the sunset from the deck before taking the evening meal alone in his quarters. He reads for a little while afterwards – one of the many adventure books he had brought with him – but he finds himself too exhausted from taking in so much fresh sea air and from the gentle rocking of the ship to stay up long. He retires early and sleeps deeply.

It is overcast the next morning and Taekwoon doesn’t need to be told that there is a storm coming.

The thudding has not lessened with his good night’s sleep and Taekwoon worries that, instead of getting better, it has in fact grown worse. He doesn’t know what to make of it. Is he really growing sick? Or is it his mind playing tricks on him?

As the rocking of the ship grows more pronounced with the approaching storm, Taekwoon really does get ill. He hides himself away in his quarters with a bucket so none of the crew can see him get sick. He knows they’d laugh at him- the son of the great ship merchant Jung Kyungji getting seasick from choppy waters? What a joke. It’s embarrassing enough that his health has kept him on land for so long. His sisters have been sailing the seas since they were babes in arms.

The storm grows steadily worse as the day progresses and the sky is so dark that Taekwoon cannot tell when the day ends and night begins. He curls in bed, a sweating and miserable mess, as lightning illuminates the sky and thunder booms overhead. He has never known anything like it. He does not worry, though, not really, not even with all the terrible stories his sisters had told him, because he knows this ship is one of his father’s best and its captain and crew are greatly experienced. They will not be lost to this storm.

The night continues on and Taekwoon sleeps fitfully when he can nod off at all. His sense of duty is telling him that he should really go help the panicked crew with the ship but he feels far too shaky and sick and knows he will likely just get in the way if he were to go above deck. Still, he tries anyway and is ushered back below deck and told not to worry, that they have encountered worse storms before and have survived to tell the tale.

It comes as a great shock then when, just after midnight, the door to his quarters bangs open.

He expects it to be one of the deckhands running to tell him that all is actually not well and that they must instead abandon ship so he sits up in bed and readies himself for action. He pauses as his eyes land on the figures in the door and his heart and stomach lurches terribly as he tries to understand just what it is he’s looking at because surely his eyes are playing tricks on him or he has hit his head and he is now hallucinating. There cannot be-.

There cannot be a group of _skeletons_ at his door.

“Is this him?” One of the figures asks, advancing towards Taekwoon.

“He’s the only one the spell hasn’t petrified.” Another says and Taekwoon screams when they reach the foot of his bed.

The thudding in his chest is painful now, more frantic even than the terrible pounding of his heart, and it only grows worse at the skeletons’ approach. He screams again as they reach out to grab him and he instead scrabbles off the bed and reaches for something – _anything_ – to use as a weapon. His hands land on a candlestick and he brandishes in front of himself like a sword.

“Stay back!” He shouts.

“Easy, boy.” The first skeleton holds up his bony hands in a placating gesture. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“I’m eighteen!” Taekwoon swings for the other skeleton when it gets too close. He doesn’t know why he’s arguing with the undead about his age when it can only be interested in eating him or something equally as terrible.

“Eighteen is still a boy in my eyes.” The same skeleton speaks again.

“Can’t we just knock him out?” The third skeleton asks, finally deciding to join the others in the room.

Taekwoon swings again with his candlestick. He’s more scared than he’s ever been before. He wants to pinch himself to make sure that this isn’t all some terrible nightmare but he knows by the painfully hard thudding in his chest that it isn’t. He presses a hand to his breastbone to try and slow it but it doesn’t do anything to help.

“We can hear it, too.” The skeleton nods at his chest. “It’s been calling to us.”

“Stay back!” Taekwoon shouts again but the world greys and his knees buckle and suddenly two pairs of skeletal hands are clamped on his arms. They keep him upright and begin to drag him from the room. Taekwoon tries to fight, even in his half-faint, but he is far too weak. He tries to call out for help instead but his voice is no louder than a whisper. “No, please! Help! Help!”

“Nobody’s going to come to your rescue.” One of the skeletons tells him.

Taekwoon’s mind reels.

They’ve killed the whole crew.

They’ve killed the whole crew and now they taking him on deck and they’re going to kill him, too, and he’s never going to see his sisters or Papa again and- and-.

The deck of the ship is crowded but not with corpses and more of the skeletons that have taken him captive like he expects but with the ship’s crew. They are stood at their stations, all still very much alive because Taekwoon can see them breathe as they walk passed them, but they look more like marble statues than men, unmoving as they are, caught midway through whatever it was they were doing, and they don’t even as much as twitch when thunder crashes overhead.

“What have you done to them?” Taekwoon asks, the terror in his voice clear to even his own ears.

“We haven’t done anything.” The skeleton who had suggested knocking him out snaps. “It’s our curse.”

“Curse?”

“Do you always asks so many questions when you are being kidnapped?”

“Where-?” But the question dies on his lips because just at that moment a bolt of lightning streaks through the sky and illuminates the large, black ship moored alongside their own much smaller one. It’s sails are tattered and the wood aged and split and covered with grime.

The thudding in Taekwoon’s chest reaches a crescendo as he’s forced to walk the plank onto the skeletons’ ship.

“Welcome,” one of the skeletons behind him shouts over the roar of the rain, “to the World’s End.”

Taekwoon’s vision blacks out and his knees give way and he feels himself begin to fall. And then-.

And then he knows no more.

**Author's Note:**

> Jaehwan will makes his appearance in the next chapter :) Want to chat? Please come talk to me on tumblr [@dramaticdaeguni](http://dramaticdaeguni.tumblr.com/)


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